[ExI] Conscientious objections

[James Clement]

On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 5:08 PM, Dan <dan_ust at yahoo.com> wrote:

> On Thursday, November 15, 2012 12:45 PM Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>


> Third, not voting doesn't really change his tax position. People who don't
> vote still have to pay taxes, last I checked. Not voting -- even not
> registering to vote -- does not in the US or any nation I know of mean one
> can avoid taxes. If it does, please let me know quickly so that I can
> contact the tax authorities in several nations for a big refund.
>
>
Owing to the U.S. legal and tax system, to truly "opt out" one has to
expatriate <http://www.expattaxandlaw.com/expatriation.html>.

 > Now of course it is impractical for you, me, and everyone else
> > to directly decide all of these issues, on a scale of the entire
> > United States.  So there is a set of people - the "government" -
> > elected (or appointed by the elected, or appointed by the
> > appointees of the elected, but all ultimately responsible to the
> > electorate - that is, to all of us) to handle these matters.  Your
> > part is to vote, to formally register your preference alongside
> > mine in how these things should be handled.
>
> That's the grade school civics view of why we have rulers. The truth,
> however, is people make all kinds of complicated decisions all the times
> and they do so voluntarily. (And even in cases where they do use experts or
> specialists, this is done voluntarily and they retain the right to not use
> them on an individual basis. For instance, I choose my auto mechanic. There
> is no election of a board to choose one for me.) The argument from
> complexity is a nonstarter. In fact, some of the most complicated things,
> such as how scientific theories are created, tested, and promulgated come
> about through a voluntary process of individuals freely interacting.
> Scientists don't elect representatives to decide which theories are valid
> and which should be set aside. Yet complicated scientific theories are
> somehow invented, tested, refined, and spread (or rejected). How's that
> possible?
>
> This is the "civics" propaganda that the Establishment teaches in middle
school. It's certainly not how the real world works (ask anyone who's
actually worked for a politician, and I don't mean campaigned for, but
actually worked in their staff office). We could just as easily have other
systems where individuals are sovereign. It was comtemplated at one time in
the U.S. that all rights fell with the citizens, was transferred by consent
to the individual States, and the Federal Government's sole role was to
resolve disputes between sovereign United States and act as a united
go-between with foreign sovereigns. From at least the time of the Civil
War, the Federal Government has been usurping the power of the States and
making it extremely difficult for individual states to compete for
citizens. Federal laws have made uniformity the rule, and social
experimentation virtually dead.


>
> Also, there's another problem here. If Rafal is an anarchist, then why
> should be vote at all? He would be morally against voting and it might be,
> on that account, wrong to participate in a process he's against. (One might
> even argue, contra you, that him voting would be hypocritical.) In such a
> case, there would be no third party that would satisfy him by definition.
> (This is basically my position too: I don't want anyone to be president.
> It's not that I want someone other than the two major party dudes. And,
> yeah, that's a hard sell for most people, but I don't think going into a
> voting booth is going to make it any easier and will, in all likelihood,
> make it much more difficult.)
>
>
Agreed. I'm an Anarchist / Agorist. Voting condones the existing "overlord"
system that is sold to people under the illusion that we are somehow in
control <http://youtu.be/xIraCchPDhk>.  The truth is - our political system
is like a casino, citizens are playing a game that only the house
continually wins at. Like roulette, the House doesn't care whether Red or
Black wins (substitute Republican or Democrat) because the House
(substitute the Establishment) has rigged the game so that it wins either
way. It doesn't matter whether Barack or Mitt is the person giving
speeches, oil prices, interest rates, stock markets, and bailouts (to name
a few) are going to be manipulated in the way the Establishment desires.
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